


Just You and I

by somedayoneday



Series: Warm & Terrified 'verse [3]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Beta!Roger, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega!John, One-Shots, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-11-05 03:19:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17911019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somedayoneday/pseuds/somedayoneday
Summary: Snippets of Roger and John's relationship before they joined Queen.[[Set in the W&T 'verse. Chapters will be rated individually and have warnings as appropriate. Although John and Roger got together when they were underage, and so will be underage in some chapters, I won't be writing any sexually explicit content in those chapters.]]





	1. The First Heat Together

**Author's Note:**

> Rating: M
> 
> CW: Heats and all the weird stuff that comes with them

John looked like he was about to vibrate out of his skin with nerves.

It had been Roger’s suggestion that they play Scrabble to distract John from what was coming, but he was starting to regret that suggestion. Obviously, John’s head wasn’t in the right place for it, and he’d given up on playing anything but two or three letter words. Roger barely had the heart to keep score anymore; it killed him to see John like this when he was usually so quietly vicious in a game of Scrabble.

“D’you want to call it a day?” Roger asked softly, because John wasn’t even really looking at the board anymore, even though it was his turn.

“Yeah,” John murmured, his voice wavering even just on that one syllable.

He wondered to himself whether John was always so nervous right before his heats hit, or if it was just Roger’s presence that was throwing him off. He’d certainly put off having Roger with him during a heat long enough, insisting rather vehemently that he preferred to be alone for it.

Now, though, they lived together. The situation didn’t really lend itself to John being able to hide away somewhere private for five days.

“Is there anything else you want to do?” Roger asked, stepping over to join John on the sofa – which was hard to fit onto, because John had dumped about three blankets and five pillows on it earlier in the week.

“Not really,” John admitted, hunching forward and bracing his hands at the back of his neck, “Don’t think we’ve got much longer to wait, anyway.”

Roger didn’t really know how to comfort his boyfriend through this. Didn’t want to come across as blasé by saying ‘it’s only a few days’ when obviously it was a bigger deal than that, but then, Roger didn’t know. All he had to go off of were textbooks, John’s embarrassed and vague descriptions, and what essentially amounted to locker-room talk.

He reached out to set a comforting hand on John’s back, and was so shocked when John _moaned_ at the touch – a long, desperate sound – that he almost recoiled. He didn’t need to, though, because John did it for him, scrambling away to the other side of the sofa – dislodging a few pillows in the process.

John looked beyond embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” Roger said, “It’s fine, John, you don’t need to be- It’s fine.” John stayed completely tense for a moment, face twisting through about twenty different variations of distress before he deflated, and slumped down a little.

“I hate this part,” John mumbled.

“Yeah, I can sort-of tell,” Roger replied, trying to keep things a little light-hearted. It worked. John let out a tiny huff of laughter. “Maybe- Look, tell me if I’m getting this stuff wrong, okay? But maybe we should go to bed now, and just have a cuddle, and let stuff happens when it happens.”

John looked cautiously agreeable to the idea, and after a moment, seemed to steel himself and stood up with a sigh. On the way over to the bed, Roger drew John close with an arm around his waist – a little surprised again when John almost whined at the touch – and pulled John down onto his lap when they got to the bed.

It was pretty much impossible to miss the fact that John was hard in his trousers, but it seemed like he didn’t feel like acting on it yet, so Roger didn’t mention it. Just wrapped his arms a little tighter around John, and let John bury his face against Roger’s neck and have a rather futile sniff around there.

And the heat – when it did hit properly, about thirty minutes later – wasn’t really Roger’s idea of fun. It was lonely, actually, something he hadn’t anticipated because he hadn’t truly realised just how out-of-it John would become. But Roger could deal.

Despite everything, Roger didn’t doubt his choice to stay with John even for a second.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all! Thank you for joining me here ;) I get the urge to write little Joger-y one-shots in this 'verse so often that I decided just to take the plunge. Unlike W&T, this won't have anything like a semi-regular update schedule, it's just as and when I want to update. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are appreciated, as always~


	2. Textbooks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John grew up learning about alphas in textbooks mainly. It didn't give him a very good impression.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M (implication of sexual themes)

John figured out when he was thirteen that he didn’t particularly like alphas.

He’d just started year nine, and while most of the year group were having a talk about their O-level options, John was sat in what would be the first of many ‘Life Skills’ classes. The name wasn’t entirely accurate – it wasn’t a class to teach John the skills he would need for the life he wanted. It was a class to teach John the skills he would need for the life an omega was expected to have. Just thinking back to thirty minutes ago, when he’d had to awkwardly explain to Roger where he was going, made John want to sink into the floor.

To distract himself from that particular memory, John flicked through the slim textbook they’d been given, outlining the content of the so-called ‘subject’.

_Chapter 1: Growing into yourself_

John winced and quickly skipped over those pages, hoping the course wasn’t taught in chapter order.

_Chapter 2: What the law says_

That could be useful at least, John supposed, but it seemed to be the shortest chapter in the book. He skim-read a few paragraphs – most of it was stuff he knew already – before moving on.

_Chapter 3: Your place in society_

It was another relatively short chapter, and John didn’t even want to know what it said. He skipped it.

_Chapter 4: Your future mate_

And there it was. No question marks, no conditional tense, just black-and-white print that has a dreadful finality about it. For an alpha, finding a mate and settling down was an option – a very desirable option for most – but an option nonetheless. For an omega, it wasn’t. Omegas were sparse and in-demand. Just like the textbook, the world around John had assumed from the day he was born that he was going to settle down with an alpha sometimes before he turned twenty.

It didn’t matter that most of the time, John found the scent of alphas overpowering and unpalatable. It didn’t matter that he wanted to go to university before settling down. It didn’t matter that getting attention from his alpha classmates – although it thrilled some baser part of him – more often than not made him so nervous he thought he might be ill. It didn’t matter that John felt a little spark of something warm in his chest every time his best friend looked his way, because Roger was a beta and-

“John, could you read the next paragraph for us?”

He’d been completely zoned out, wasn’t even sure what paragraph they were on, or what  _page_ they were on, until one of his classmates leaned over to point it out for him. Chapter 4, page 1, third paragraph. John pursed his lips, skimming the text before he started to read.

“While unmated, you should be open and courteous to any displays of interest from alphas around you. You should…”

As he read, John’s mind wandered to Roger again. Roger expected him to be mated off one day, even if that fact was never spoken aloud, it loomed in background of every conversation they had about the future. And John couldn’t help but think that maybe, if that expectation wasn’t there, Roger might start to see him the way he saw Roger.

Though the thoughts had been slowly crystallising in his head for months now, it was only when he got home that night, and sat alone in his room that John really let himself admit it. He wasn’t interested in alphas. He wasn’t interested in being treated like some lesser, delicate thing. He wasn’t interested in a relationship where his partner had so much power over him and he had almost none over them.

More than anything, he wasn’t interested in being with anyone but Roger.

It was a frightening thought. So frightening that he pushed it aside, and refocused on the disassembled remote control on his desk. All these feelings wouldn’t matter much for another few years, after all, so he would just take a leaf from Roger’s book and try to ignore dynamics and their implications for another few years.

If only it was that easy.

——————————————-

Roger had been dating John for a month, though neither of them had been brave enough yet to put that label on the slow kisses they shared when they were sure nobody would walk in on them. The way John kissed him was unlike how anybody had kissed Roger before – the other boy was gentle, and thorough, and looked at Roger afterwards like he’d hung the stars in the sky. It was so nice that Roger didn’t particularly mind that things hadn’t gone any further. The whole thing still felt a bit taboo, after all, and he knew John was a virgin, so it made sense to move forward in baby steps.

Things took a turn one evening, when Roger was over at John’s house. He far preferred spending time together in John’s room, because the place smelled like John, and had his personality all over it – from the neatly-made bed, to the constantly evolving electronics projects John had set up on his desk, to the box of chocolates Roger had bought him last week, that John was taking his sweet time to savour, even though they were a bit cheap.

They hadn’t gotten to kissing yet, content for now just to enjoy each other’s quiet company as John did his maths homework and Roger nosed through his things looking for something interesting. He eventually found something, in the form of a slim textbook tucked in a pile of old textbooks under John’s bed.

‘Life Skills: Book 3’

It rang a bell. Roger could vaguely remember John taking some funny omega classes back before sixth form, but since John had barely spoken about them, Roger had no idea what they involved.

Curious, he flipped open the textbook. It was in a much worse state than John’s other textbooks, looking like it had been stuffed to the bottom of his bag in a hurry on more than one occasion, and with a few worksheets stuffed haphazardly between the pages. Roger tugged out one sheet, eyebrows shooting up when he saw the subject matter. He cast a glance over to John - who was turned away, busy with his homework still – before looking at the sheet in question. It was pretty simple, four questions in bold and then John’s handwritten answers – though it was obvious from the layout that the teacher had expected John to write far more than the few words he had scrawled in.

> **My first heat came when I was:** _15_
> 
> **My heats are regular / ~~irregular~~**
> 
> **Write how you feel about heats currently:** _Not good_
> 
> **Write how you think you will feel about heats when you’re mated:**   _Not good_

It seemed like the weirdest thing to make a bloody worksheet about, if Roger’s understanding of heats was anything close to accurate. It explained at least why John hadn’t ever spoken about those classes. He was about to tuck the sheet back in and put the textbook away when he noticed the title of another worksheet sticking out.

‘My Ideal Mate’

Roger’s curiosity got the better of him, and pulled it out to have a read.

Similarly to the last worksheet, the layout looked a little juvenile, considering John must have been about sixteen when asked to fill it out. There was a stick figure in the centre of the page, and instructions to ‘List the features you look for in an alpha’. Just as with the worksheet, John seemed to have put in minimal effort. He’d only written three phrases in the vast blank space provided.

> _Kind_
> 
> _Values higher education_
> 
> _Not an alpha_

“Put that down.”

John’s voice was sharp, and so unexpected that Roger dropped the sheet abruptly. When he looked up at John, his expression was hard to read and Roger couldn’t tell if his cheeks were flushed with anger or with embarrassment.

“I was just-“

“Being nosy, yes, I know. It’s not any of your business,” John snapped, snatching the worksheet and the textbook away from Roger and walking away to shove them into the bin.

“Sorry,” Roger said, a little nervous. He wasn’t used to John reacting so badly to… well, to anything, really, “I didn’t think it was a big deal.”  
  
"It's not," John muttered, not sounding entirely convinced by that himself, "But I don't want to talk about it."  
  
There was a heavy pause, and Roger desperately wanted to figure out the right words to say to fill it, but he couldn't think of them. He hated seeing John like this.  
  
The words didn't come though, and after a minute, John was sat at his desk again, scrawling away at his homework. Later, when John was finished, he seemed to have softened up to Roger again, and sat with him on the bed and let Roger slip a hand down to his hip as they kissed softly for a while.

Even later, when they were just laying in bed and chatting, neither of them mentioned the textbooks, or the worksheets, even though Roger's mind was full of questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you read my outtakes on tumblr, this may be familiar ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading, and remember, comments and kudos make me smile <3


	3. On Your Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roger can be pretty blunt with his questions sometimes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M
> 
> CW: References to non-con

“Do you think about alphas when you wank?”

That only earned Roger a glance, a raised eyebrow, and then John simply turned back to the book he’d been reading before Roger had interrupted.

“Hey, look, it’s a genuine question!” Roger protested, gently nudging John’s book away from his face, “Seriously, I’m curious.” John still wasn’t looking his way. “I won’t be upset or anything if you say yes.”

“Why are you asking now?” John finally responded, closing his book and setting it aside. Roger couldn’t help but notice the rather charming dusting of pink on his cheeks.

“I -uh – I don’t know,” Roger lied. Then, because he didn’t like lying to John, he sighed and added, “We’ve been covering hormonal cycles in biology. You know… Heats and stuff. Some of the stuff in the book just got me thinking.”

John blushed properly then.

“Heats are different,” he said, voice a little sharp at the edges.

“So you don’t?”

“Think about alphas?” John asked, and Roger nodded. “No, I don’t. Do you?”

It probably served Roger right to have the question shot right back at him. It was an uncomfortable one, because sure, he had in the past. He’d jerked off thinking about Matthew, before they’d started dating, but the thought of it now made his stomach turn.

It had been a good long while, and yet the memory of that incident still felt like an open wound in Roger’s chest. It didn’t help that he still saw Matthew sometimes – in school, even though he’d been moved into different classes, and around town – always having the nerve to look fine and happy and content even after what he’d done.

“You don’t have to tell me, Rog, I don’t need to know,” John said, and Roger realised then just how long he’d gone without responding.

John had answered, though, so it only seemed fair.

“I used to. Not anymore.”

“Because of…?” John began, and then trailed off. His expression twisted into something anxious and Roger knew what he was thinking.

_Because of Matthew. Because the last alpha Roger had fancied had tried to-_

Roger shoved that thought away.

“Because I’m thinking about you, obviously,” Roger murmured instead, and felt a wash of relief when the worry seemed to ease out of John’s expression a little, replaced with a soft smile that was almost enough to make Roger forget all of his own worries too.

If the smile hadn’t been enough, John leaning in to kiss him certainly was.

A few minutes later, with John sat snugly close on Roger’s lap and keening for the drag of Roger’s lips against his neck, it didn’t take much for Roger to imagine what John actually thought about when he got himself off.

It was with a rather smug smile, then, that Roger brought their lips together for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick one! I know updates have slowed a lot, so I hope the barrage of stuff I posted last week has been enough to tide y'all over :') I wasn't sure I'd be posting anything this weekend, but this lil plot bunny creeped into my head so I thought I might as well share it.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for reading! And thanks for all the comments and kudos, you guys are great.


	4. Results Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John and Roger get their A-level results.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T

“Have you not opened yours yet?”

The question slipped out, surprised, before Roger had stopped to take a minute and think about what he was seeing. Well, he knew what he was seeing: John’s A-level results, still tucked away in the manila envelope they’d come in, untouched on his bedside table. What he didn’t know was _why,_ when the envelopes had been handed out several hours ago now, most people ripping them open the second they got their hands on them.

That was what Roger had done, grinning down at his A and two Bs – not quite what he’d been predicted, but enough to get into uni, and that was what mattered in the end. And apparently, he’d been pleased enough that in the ruckus of celebration, he’d missed the fact that John hadn’t even opened this. Admittedly, Roger had taken John’s lack of comment about his own grades as a good sign that John had achieved the three As everybody expected him to get.

“Mm,” John hummed instead of answering the question, eyes not even drifting up to meet Roger’s, seeming far more interested in continuing to thumb through the paperback he was reading.

“Are you going to open them?” Roger pressed, watching as John’s hands stilled properly this time. “Is it nerves? Come on, you know you’ve got nothing to worry about. I could open them for you, if that helps.”

“You can open them if you want,” John finally conceded, and Roger could see a little furrow in his brow now. “I just don’t need to see them.”

That baffling comment gave Roger pause. John had worked hard for two years on his A-levels, it made no sense for him not to see what grades he’d achieved.

“Why not?” Roger asked, shuffling closer to John on the bed, but John didn’t lean into him like he usually would have. His shoulders were a little slumped now, looking resigned, and he’d set down his book.

“Because it doesn’t _matter_ , Rog,” John sighed after a heavy pause, “I could have failed every single exam or gotten full marks and it wouldn’t matter either way because I can’t _do_ anything with them, can I?”

Shit.

It was easy to forget sometimes – what with how John barely brought it up – that John not going to university wasn’t a choice. After all, John had still done campus tours with Roger, and nosed through prospectuses with him – making idle comments about all the apparent flaws in the engineering courses of various universities. Looking back, Roger had to admit he’d perhaps been wilfully ignorant of the fact that John was only making those comments so he’d feel better about never being able to take any of those courses.

“Sorry.” John’s voice startled Roger out of his thoughts, and he looked over at the other boy almost incredulously.

“Don’t apologise,” Roger replied quickly, “I should’ve realised.”

“Maybe. It’s not like I mentioned it before,” John said with a shrug, and a little relief bloomed in Roger’s chest when John finally inched closer to him, “It’s fine, Roger, honestly. I’ve had ages to come to terms with it.”

“So you really don’t want to know what you got?” Roger asked, “You weren’t even planning on looking when you picked them up?”

“I suppose I just thought… You know, if I looked at them, I’d be reminded of all _that,_ and then I’d probably be terrible company… And I wanted today to be more about celebrating you getting into uni, because I knew you would,” John replied, smiling wistfully, “See how well that plan turned out.”

“You know I don’t mind,” Roger said softly, bringing his hand up to stroke the back of John’s neck. John relaxed a little into the touch, conflicted grey eyes meeting Roger’s, making Roger wish he knew how to fix this. “Do you want to forget I mentioned it?”

“No… No, you might as well just open them now,” John replied, and Roger didn’t push the fact that apparently John wasn’t willing to open the envelope himself. Reaching over to the bedside table, Roger grabbed the envelope and didn’t dawdle, tearing it open neatly and looking at the sheet of paper inside.

Three little As looked back at him, in neat black print, exactly as Roger had expected.

John was looking at him with a sort of nervous tension that betrayed just how much he did care, despite not wanting to.

“You got all As,” Roger said, giving John’s shoulder a squeeze, “Well done.”

And John was smiling, but there was a horrible wistfulness to his expression. It lingered for the rest of the evening, despite Roger’s best attempts to wipe it away with celebratory kisses, and Roger thought he could still see it a bit the next day.

He wondered if that wistfulness had been there all along, and he’d just let himself ignore it, like so many other things.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! It's short, I know, I just wanted to get back into the swing of writing this 'verse before trying anything longer ;)
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated. And thanks for all the lovely comments on the final chapter of W&T!!


	5. Physical Education

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School's not the friendliest place to begin with. PE changing rooms are worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T (there's "locker room talk", but nothing actually happens)
> 
> PE is English for 'physical education' aka "gym class", for those unaware.

“How ‘bout Deacon, then?”

Roger’s ears perked up at the mention of John’s name, distracting him from another conversation he’d only been half-listening to. PE changing rooms didn’t tend to bring about the most interesting of discussions, and Roger was still a bit miffed that he’d had to cut his earlier conversation with John short so that the other boy could go off to the changing room reserved for omega students. Last year, nobody had minded much if Roger snuck in there just to keep chatting to John, but now they were older, and it was apparently awfully important that Roger didn’t see John in his skivvies.

The atmosphere in the main changing room was pretty different.

“What, in our year?” A hum of confirmation. “Yeah, I’d go for him. Have you seen his arse in PE shorts?” came the reply. It made Roger’s stomach twist. It was decidedly not the sort of stuff he wanted to hear being said about John, but the thought of intervening also didn’t appeal. Intervening meant acknowledging the conversation was happening – that this sort of conversation had probably happened before, too.

“Shame he doesn’t wear them in every class, it’d make English more bearable. His face is nice too,” the first voice chimed back in. Roger tried to refocus on a different conversation, which turned out to be basically impossible. “Apparently he’s planning on sticking around for sixth form, though. So probably a bit uppity.”

“I dunno, a good arse is a good arse. Personality won’t matter much once he’s mated,” the second voice pointed out, just as Roger finally wrangled the laces of his left trainer into something that could be loosely-interpreted as ‘tied’ and strode out of the changing rooms.

Out on the field, he was met by John, whose cheeks and nose had been reddened a little by the wind. He was wearing the standard uniform for outdoor games: white polo-shirt, with a round-necked jumper pulled over it, and black shorts that could have done with being a bit looser. John’s smile when he spotted Roger and jogged over to him didn’t betray that he had any idea of the sorts of conversations their classmates apparently had about him behind his back.

Roger didn’t want to bring the topic up. He also couldn’t bear not to act.

“Why’ve you got a jumper on, Deaks? It’s practically summer,” he said as he got closer to John, doing his best job of faking incredulity – even though Roger was slightly regretting not wearing a jumper himself.

“Summer? It’s not even May yet,” John replied, looking a bit bemused. It was the sort of expression he wore a lot around Roger.

“Whatever, it’s not _cold._ No point working up a sweat in a jumper that you’ll have to take off after five minutes,” Roger shot back, and John was giving him a funny look now. Probably because both Roger and John knew that today was rounders, which tended to be more boring than physically exhausting.

“Just- Come on, John, just take it off. Trust me,” Roger pushed, and John finally conceded. He shrugged the jumper off, and – barring anywhere to leave it on the field that wouldn’t result in someone else mistaking it for their own – wrapped it neatly around his waist by the sleeves, effectively covering himself up.

“All good?” John asked softly, and obviously he realised something was up, because his voice was softer now, and he was focused just on Roger even as a furious whistle blowing behind them indicated that their PE teacher was trying to gather the class together.

“Fine,” Roger assured him, shrugging it off and beginning to walk over to where their classmates were already mostly gathered.

Had he stayed back a moment longer, he might have seen John carefully readjusting the jumper to cover himself up a bit more before jogging after Roger. He might have, but he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! I know I'm making myself a bit scarce these days, but I'm still here. Thought I'd share a little snippet of John and Roger's teen years with you this fine Saturday!


End file.
